


perhaps not to be is to be without your being

by qbrujas



Series: i learn myself in you [2]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Epistolary, F/M, Love Letters, and detective being very intense, and writing very romantic and sensual letters, just suavewell being swoon-worthy as usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qbrujas/pseuds/qbrujas
Summary: You are not here with me tonight, for the first time in weeks, and I feel the lack of you.Letters between Agent Nathaniel Sewell and Detective Eva Navarro.
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: i learn myself in you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008429
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38
Collections: A series of familiar letters





	1. From Nathaniel Sewell to Eva Navarro

Eva, my dearest,

I must admit I have grown used—perhaps almost too easily—to the weight of you on my bed; to the quiet pattern of your breathing as you lie next to me, tangled with me. To the sound of your heartbeat, slowed by sleep but still unmistakably, uniquely yours, a rhythm that will stay with me no matter how many more centuries I may live.

I have grown used to it, I say: you are not here with me tonight, Eva, for the first time in weeks, and I feel the lack of you. 

I will see you soon, kiss you and hold you soon—but for now, all I can do is write these words for you, lose myself in my many thoughts of you, tell you how I wish I could be lost in you instead.

I think of you, my Eva—I think of you and the sweet, inebriating warmth that is the taste of your kisses, the taste of you on my tongue and the heat of you under me.

I think of you, and of how the world fades away at your mere, intoxicating presence; how you fill every one of my senses until there is nothing, nothing but you. Nothing but the way your heart speeds up for me as we draw closer, and the sweet fire in your eyes and the soft curve of your mouth, eager and wanting, your tempting smile a challenge you know I could never—would never—resist.

I think of the small marks dotted like constellations on your skin, across your face and down your neck, your shoulders, your chest; I have counted them and kissed them and will count and kiss them again and yet again. I think of how you laugh, soft and crystal clear, with a look in your eyes that makes my heart beat as fast as yours—how you laugh when I trace them, softly, from your face to your neck, and how that laughter turns to sighs and your eyes flutter closed and I am lost, lost again in the lines of your body, the warmth of your skin, kissing you and touching you everywhere I can reach.

I think of nothing else, now, other than the sounds pleasure draws from you—every soft sigh you breathe into my mouth; every pleading moan when you ask me for _more_.

I think of how you look, eyes closed, beautiful, divine, your body arching off the bed we share, lost to everything but this heat between us.

I think of our hands, joined together and anchoring you—me, us—as we fall apart.

I think of you, Eva, my darling. I always do.

I hope you think of me, too.

Yours always, yours alone,

Nate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would not exist without the absolutely wonderful Wayhaven writers support group on discord, and now we're writing aaall of the Unit Bravo love letters.
> 
> The title is from Sonnet 69 by Pablo Neruda because I am very bad at titles.


	2. From Eva Navarro to Nathaniel Sewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eva's response.

Nate,

You are unfair to me, my love.

You are unfair, you know you are, writing such beautiful words to me.

Tell me how I am meant to breathe when you take the air from my lungs like this and leave me speechless, dazed, knowing nothing except you.

Tell me how it is that I haven't learned to forgo air entirely, when you constantly leave me in this state.

(And I  would give up breathing, Nate, if that was what it took to be with you. Air hasn't given me what you have.)

I have read your letter over and over and over again, every word. I almost know it by heart now and I am still at a loss, with my heart racing for you. Always for you. But you know that already, don’t you? You know every reaction you draw out of me.

Here you have me, trying to write this response on paper, with a pen (your pen), even though I haven't written anything by hand in years.

I have been staring at this page for far too long.

Forgive me, my love; I don’t have your way with words. Nothing I can ever find it in me to say will match what I feel for you, or the beautiful letter you wrote. This is just a mess of stray thoughts that all lead back to you (and isn’t that what my mind has become?).

You say you hope I think of you. There is nothing you need to worry about less: I think of you always. I wish I could tell you how much, how intensely, how completely you occupy my thoughts.

How just the idea of you is enough to make me dizzy and giddy and unable to focus on anything else for hours.

How any amount of distance between us feels wrong, like every atom in my body is pulling me towards you. How I feel drunk off of your kisses and the simple memory of your lips on my skin has my mind wandering to every night we’ve spent in your bed, every word you’ve whispered in my ear, the way you feel and taste and sound.

How I crave you, Nate—and it is such a feeling, to crave somebody whole. Every last piece of you, from your words to your lips, from your eyes to your touch, from your smile to everything that has made you who you are.

And I would give you anything you asked of me in return.

Nothing has ever felt like this. Nothing. I have never felt anything as strongly as I do with you, never felt as happy or as thrilled or as fascinated by anything or anyone.

I have never  been, Nate, as much as I am with you.

That is all I can tell you, my love; that is as much as words will cooperate with me. For all the rest, I’ll have to ask that you let me show you.

— Your Eva, always your Eva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting Eva's voice right here was a struggle—a balancing act between not being a words person in the way that Nate is, but trying very hard to meet him in his comfort zone. Hopefully this turned out alright, I'm fairly happy with it, after picking at it for a very long time.


	3. From Eva Navarro to Nathaniel Sewell (Undelivered)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discarded page from Eva's letter.

I’ve cracked myself open for you and nothing has ever given me such pleasure.

Everything about you—your gaze on me, your hands, your lips, the way you want to know every detail about me and I swear, Nate, the way you look at me makes something in my chest ache and burn and hurt, but it is the sweetest pain, it's that pain from relief when feeling floods in after having been numb for too long.

Have you ever felt that? 

Do you know, Nate?

Do you know how little I felt? How little I cared? How little love there was in me before you flooded me with it?

I feel so much with you. I wouldn't take away even the sting of it.

I don’t want to tell you these things, not yet. I want you to know, I need you to know, but I’m afraid you’ll worry about causing me pain. I don’t want you to think you’re hurting me when you’ve made me feel more alive than I have in my entire life.

I’ll tell you, I promise. I want you to know all of me.


End file.
